Shop Vac / Dust Deputy Cart

I recently bought an Oneida Dust Deputy to go along with my…somewhat lacking dust collection system (AKA a Shop Vac). I learned very quickly that this two-stage setup is extremely clunky, and has an annoying tendency to tip over if it gets a chance. This cart addresses both limitations. It still takes up a lot of space, but at least it’s easy to move now. I intentionally made it a little bigger than necessary so that I can simply lay my extra hose attachments on the bottom next to the vac/buckets.

Construction is pretty simple. It’s almost exclusively 1/4” plywood, glued at all the joints. This stuff was about as warped as a potato chip, so it will be interesting to see how long the sides can hold it flat. The blocks in the corners each consist of three plywood squares glued together, and are only there because I used stem casters that I inadvertently ordered and didn’t bother to send back.

The vac is screwed down with 3” long, #10 sheet metal screws using the factory screw holes intended for the casters. Lining up those holes was the hardest part of the project. I didn’t want to ruin a brand new 5 gallon bucket, so I simply used double-sided tape and a plywood spacer. I don’t think that tape is intended for plywood, though. It seems to be holding right now, but I won’t be the least bit surprised to see it rip free at some point. I can always screw it down later if need be.

cyborge – check the seal between the shop vac lid and container. If there is any play at all between them or the fit is even slightly loose, make a gasket. On my craftsman shop vac I put couple layers of duct tape tp the container and the performance increased quite a bit.

I used a fuel pump gauge and dead headed it at the final hose opening. Vacumn went from high 3.x to just under 5 inches of water.

Give an update later on separation of the chips and climate in the work shop.

I didn’t mean to imply that this particular Shop Vac is weak. I just meant that, from what I keep hearing, this type of vac in general is weak for dust collection. Still, you make a great point Steve. Your numbers show a substantial increase for something so simple. It’s worth looking into at the very least. These Shop Vac lids just settle down onto the base and are held down by two levers, so there could easily be a pretty substantial leak.

The cyclone portion is working great; so far nothing, or close to nothing, is ending up in the vac. At least nothing visible. I made sure to empty and clean out the tank, as well as replace the filter with a new Clean Stream (HEPA), so that should at least help with the invisible stuff. Unfortunately, I can’t really evaluate how good the overall suction is because I don’t have any stationary tools to hook it to directly. I have plans to make a router table, which should be a good test, but that’s going to be a while.

CyBorge,I’m new here and am putting together my shop myself.
I was at the hardwood store this week picking out some wood for my Sawdust Therapy for Women 102 class. I decided to check in to their little pamphlet, magazine, book room to see if I could find some info I was looking for on finishes for mahogany. As always I found more than I was looking for when I found “Woodsmith” number 20 published in March 1982. It had a plan for a router table that can be clamped to your workbench. Wish I’d found that before I put down a chunk of change on a Freud folding portable router table. I set the new table on my workbench and it comes up to 6 inches below my chin. I guess I should have expected that since I’m 5’3”. It has a great Freud fence, dust port and mounting plate for my router in all, now I have to build something about 16 inches shorter for it to sit on. After seeing the easy router table in the “Woodsmith” which by the way is very inexpensive to build and has a bigger table, I might just try to meld the best parts of both together. I already spent the week putting together a new shorter table for my new SCMS which still needs to be bolted down before I can try it out. My mother is hollering at me to either fix the door on her dutch hutch or give it back so she can put more duct tape on it and duct tape it back on. Of course you can’t put on the new henge till ya sharpen your grandfathers rusty ol chisels, and well it took me 5 hour with a diamond sharpener to just flatten the back of the blade. Remember that old song “There’s a Hole in the Bucket Dear Liza”? Seems like I’ll never get any wood cut except in class where the tools are already set up. My grandfather was quite a woodworker, he never let me into his shop except to visit, as I was a girl. Now I have all his hand tools. Most of them need a lot of work and TLC as his workshop roof leaked and as he was into his nineties, climbing onto the roof to fix it was not in the cards. I still think I got the better part of the legacy, and think of him looking down on me sharpening up all those old tools.Good luck on that router table, and if you don’t want to go the whole 9 yards, you might just try to find a March 1982 edition of Woodsmith. Anyone out there have one laying around that you are done with?